Failures...Just How Should We Deal?

I thought for today's post that rather than just talk about cards, I'd talk about a few failures in my life and how I dealt with them. It's always instructive to hear about how other people deal with failures, right?

This all does lead back to crafting so bear with me a while, come on, humour me!

One of my first failures in life was getting sacked. People who know me would tell you a. that they can't believe that happened, and b. I bet that upset you. And I would have to say, yes, you're 100% correct! I worked as a waitress from the age of 15. The money wasn't great and I didn't like the job. It was unsociable hours and I was much more shy as a child than I am now. Anyway, the boss phone me one day and said 'don't come back'. It was a bit of a bolt out of the blue. I'd not done anything wrong and the boss was rather vague in his reasoning.

How did I react? Well, firstly I cried, then cried a bit more, and then I got really angry. I blamed it on them. How could they possibly not want me?! What was wrong with me?! I got my Mum to call them and tell them how upset I was and ask for an explaination. Needless to say there was never an explaination, and despite my best attempts to think otherwise, I still see it as a conspiracy. Maybe they were just over staffed?

Anyway, I would classify my emotions as denial, shame and then anger.

So what does this have to do with crafting?! Stay with me, I'm getting there!

Art and crafting are those kind of hobbies where you make repeated mistakes and fail on numerous occasions. How many times have you almost finished a card, only to smudge the ink, get glue in the wrong place, notice it's not all square and there are wonky bits?? For me, this happens every time I craft!

I hear a lt of people say 'there's no such thing as a mistake, just happy accidents'. Well, I only agree with this partially. Some mistakes do ruin pieces, and there's no point carrying on with a piece you're not happy with. Personally, if I mess up, I'm not the type to try and cover it up (although I have done in the past!) I'd rather start again.

And I suppose that's the whole point of my post. We all make mistakes, so don't try to cover it up. Over my few years of adult life *cough cough*, I've taken on the opinion that it's better to 'fess up' and start again. There's no point getting overly emotional. If you feel guilty, it stunts your creativity. If you feel ashamed, you will ruin your confidence. If you get angry you'll probably not get anything else right that day.

Let me illustrate my current approach to failure. About 6 months ago I booked a craft fair with my family. My Mum and sister both agreed to pay towards the table fee and sell their items alongside me. On the day we turned up to find it was an antiques fair (bad news!) and I sold 2 cards the entire day. All in all between the three of us we barely made enough to cover a takeaway after the fair!

So what did I do? Back in the day, when I was 15 I would have probably got sad (cried), angry (complained to the organiser) and then got my Mum to complain too. My approach was so different that it struck me how much real life experience really does change character.

1. I accepted that I'd chosen the wrong venue, and decided to always check the venue for future fairs BEFORE handing over any money.
2. I apologised to my family for the mess up.
3. I went out and bought a cookie cake iced with 'At Least We Tried', which we ate as a family that evening.

The moral of this story is that in my opinion we have to accept responsibility for our failures, learn from them, and then LAUGH about them when we feel the time is right to do so. We all mess up! I'm sure even the queen has smashed the odd family heirloom.

So how about you? What's your philosophy on failure?